The present article offers a biographical and an academic profile of Stanko Škerlj (1893–1975), who was a central figure in the field of Romance Studies in 20th century Slovenia and, along with Fran Šturm (1881–1944), established the study of Romance languages and literatures at the University of Ljubljana. Particular attention is given to his intellectual formation above all at the University of Vienna, where he was a student between 1911 and 1916, and then to his time at the École des hautes études in Paris in the early 1920s, where he completed another dissertation and obtained a further degree. Then his activity as a lecturer at the University of Belgrade is briefly discussed as well as later career, after the Second World War, at the University of Ljubljana. Finally, the paper focuses on some of his publications that highlight his three main academic interests: the study of language, the study of literature, and the development of the discipline of Romance Studies in Slovenia.
In the area of linguistic research, Škerlj was primarily a syntactician. He conceptualised a type of syntactic change, stereotypization, where syntactic constructions change their function, whether through extension or in other ways, without undergoing any formal change. In the area of literature, the paper discusses his contribution to translation criticism published in response to an anthology of Slovene poetry in Italian translation. In conclusion, the article highlights Škerlj's wide-ranging approach to Romance Studies in Slovenia, which shows him to be an open, broad-minded and modern academic. His views on the proper scope and goals of Romance Studies (in Slovenia) as well as on the relationship between academia and the outside world continue to be valid today.
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